Ther "Are" tied for first with us in the SEC West, after 8 games and their only SEC loss is a three point margin, ranked #22 in the AP Poll.......to think they aren't contenders is foolish, imo.
Tiga nailed it on the head. Very much a contender, if they win this game they are "the" contender for the west.
Pretender all the way, but it doesn't mean they can't beat us. Ole Miss is an annual pretender, but they give us fits almost every year. I expect Bama to do the same on Nov 3. The UT win was impressive, IMO. Not that UT is good this year, but they did hold them to only 17 when they've been giving up many more points to lesser offenses. OM and Houston almost beat them and they lost to a struggling FSU team. This pretender will be fired up and ready to play. It'll be closer than the experts think. But they are pretenders this year.
I'll call them contenders because they are tied with us for first. I'll call them pretenders because a look at their schedule and you will see that to this point they have played only one ranked team and lost.
I'm just thinking out loud here of course but if VT, USC (east), Auburn, Florida, and Kentucky drop out of the rankings does this mean LSU has played no ranked teams ? If I'm not mistaken pollsters use what the team was ranked when you played them and not the final ranking of them or a week to week ranking. Arkansas was #16 when we played them (yes their coach pissed it away that season) Georgia was ranked Number #22 when we played them. Tennessee was ranked #20 last weekend. I won't disagree that if we'd played your schedule we would be where we are now but we've played more than one ranked team. Won 2 and went into ot with another. We are not a MNC contender this year in anyway shape or form of course.
